Lots of excellent Geology news is on Twitter. Two highly recommended tweeters are Prof Iain Stewart and also the Earth Science teachers'association.
https://twitter.com/ESTA_UK
@ESTA_UK
Thursday, 15 December 2016
Crater of Death update 2016
Scientists say they have a clue that may enable them to find traces of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs in the very crater it made on impact.
This pointer takes the form of a nickel signature in the rocks of the crater that is now buried under ocean sediments in the Gulf of Mexico.
An international team has just drilled into the 200km-wide depression.
It hopes the investigation can help explain why the event 66 million years ago was so catastrophic.
Seventy-five percent of all life, not just the dinosaurs, went extinct.
One tantalising revelation is that the scientists observe a big nickel spike in the sediments immediately above what has become known as Chicxulub Crater.
This is an important marker that could lead on to the discovery of asteroid material itself.
Old Wellie Dr Sally Morgan was part of the team on the project.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38299804
Earth's slow surface warping
British researchers are now routinely mapping a great swathe of Earth's surface, looking for the subtle warping that ultimately leads to quakes.
The team is processing satellite images to show how rocks in a belt that stretches from Europe's Alps to China are slowly accumulating strain.
Movements on the scale of just millimetres per year are being sought.
The new maps are being made available to help researchers produce more robust assessments of seismic hazard.
The kind of change they are trying to chart is not noticeable in the everyday human sense, but over time will put faults under such pressure that they eventually rupture - often with catastrophic consequences.
This pair of spacecraft repeatedly and rapidly image the surface of the globe, throwing their data to the ground using a high-speed laser link. And by comparing whole stacks of their pictures in a technique known as interferometry, the COMET group can begin to see the very slow bending and buckling that occurs in the crust as a result of shifting tectonic plates.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38323832
Geothermal Borehole in Iceland
Geologists say they are close to creating the hottest borehole in the world.
They are drilling into the heart of a volcano in the south-west of Iceland.
They have told the BBC that they should reach 5km down, where temperatures are expected to exceed 500C , in the next couple of weeks.
The researchers want to bring steam from the deep well back up to the surface to provide an important source of energy.
The project is located on the Reykjanes peninsula, quite near the Blue Lagoon, where a volcano last erupted 700 years ago.
A huge rig stands out against the black lava fields; inside a drill has been operating for 24 hours a day since August.
It has now descended nearly 4,500m, and the team expects it to hit its target depth of 5km by the end of the year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38296251
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